ITALIAN SCHOOLS

ROOMS I TO VII

ALSO DOME SECTION AND

VESTIBULE

* *

NOfCTH
VESTIBULE

THE earliest pictures in the National Gallery are
the Greco-Roman Portraits which hang on the
east wall of the North Vestibule. These dim reflections
of classical painting—a sphere of art almost entirely lost
to us—were the work of Egyptian artisans living in
Alexandria in the third century A.D. (A,D. 40-250), the
period known as Greco-Roman. The paintings had an
obsequial destiny and were fixed into the interior of
mummy cases to serve as memorial portraits. The em-
balmed bodies of the dead were wrapped in cloths and
it is thought that the portraits were fastened to the
mummy cloth at the head of the corpse.

It is, perhaps, interesting to reflect that the painters of
these Greco-Roman portraits were completely unedu-
cated men, mere undertakers* artisans and that their
method of execution—called encaustic—was clumsy and
primitive in the extreme* They mixed the colours with

N.G, 17 BITALIAN SCHOOLS

ROOMS I TO VII

ALSO DOME SECTION AND

VESTIBULE

* *

NOfCTH
VESTIBULE

THE earliest pictures in the National Gallery are
the Greco-Roman Portraits which hang on the
east wall of the North Vestibule. These dim reflections
of classical painting—a sphere of art almost entirely lost
to us—were the work of Egyptian artisans living in
Alexandria in the third century A.D. (A,D. 40-250), the
period known as Greco-Roman. The paintings had an
obsequial destiny and were fixed into the interior of
mummy cases to serve as memorial portraits. The em-
balmed bodies of the dead were wrapped in cloths and
it is thought that the portraits were fastened to the
mummy cloth at the head of the corpse.

It is, perhaps, interesting to reflect that the painters of
these Greco-Roman portraits were completely unedu-
cated men, mere undertakers* artisans and that their
method of execution—called encaustic—was clumsy and
primitive in the extreme* They mixed the colours with

N.G, 17 B